I thought my prologue was hillarious, so I'mma make all y'all read it
wordcount: 2,000
PS ignore spelling it not be check'd
PROLOGUE
Jimmie sneezed. The noise was followed by several quick, loud sniffs, which did well to hide a soft spoken curse.
"Bless you," a female voice said in a matter-of-fact sort of tone.
The brown haired boy sniffed again. "Thanks...." At that the girl, Mareka was her name, probably somewhere in her mid to late teens, smiled and then turned her back on him. He sniffed roughly again and quickly ran the cuff of his sleeve under his nose. This was no good; he had forgotten his handkerchief at home, and the one he had brought from work was covered in oil.
The apprentice mechanic sighed in disdain. Well, he could always use hers - she never used it anyways. As he turned back to the machine he was working away on, he eyed the article warily. Yes, he could see it from here, and it taunted him. It was across the room on a rough yet sturdy looking desk, where the blonde girl often chose to study (whenever she did study, which was not often). He could go get it, but there was no telling how she would react. On one hand, she wouldn’t care; she never used it, he needed it, he was her friend so it would be fine by her. On the other hand, she could easily be upset, and react very negatively.
She had always been mentally unstable, but lately she had been acting more and more like a typical teenaged girl. That fact alone made it harder to predict her mood swings than ever before. It drove Jimmie crazy. Of course, he himself was a teenager (roughly the same age as Mareka, but it couldn’t be certain for not even she knew when her own day of birth was), so sometimes he could be just as bad as she was. Those days were rare, being few and far between, so he could still scold Mareka for her "teenager" days with little repercussion.
Once again, he sniffed. Curse his cold. He could really user her handkerchief, but he really didn’t want to risk anything. Instead, he continued to work diligently on tightening all the bolts on the machine’s side panel. He tried to push thoughts of his running nose out of his head in order to focus better on his work. It would do no good to slip up now; it would require more time to fix than it did to break, as it always seemed to do. And if he did mess something up, he’d be hearing about it from either Aerron or Angelina. Aerron was his boss and teacher. Angelina was his current employer - thus why he was in her workshop, a mere few meters away form Mareka’s desk - and, just a few years ago, she had also become Aerron’s wife.
Angelina Hull was an inventor. She spent the majority of her time altering and perfecting the plans her late father had left behind, trying to make working wonderful machines for nothing else than to at least see something in the massive workshop completed. She had met Aerron quite a few years ago, when she called him in so he could repair the steam engines on one of the machines. It had been a lot of work, but the mechanic had eventually gotten the engine in working condition. The machine itself never met its purpose, but that was beside the current point.
Since the two had wed Angelina had gotten more inventions in proper working order, no matter how trivial their tasks. Aerron was still one of the best mechanics in all of Valeoclarus. Between caring for their child, Blake, and working, the two rarely had time for much else. Even Aerron was barely even in his wife’s own workshop, opting to worry more about outside customers. This was fine by his wife, as long as the work got done when she needed to get an engine in proper working order. This was where Jeremiah, or as he was better known as, Jimmie, came in. While Aerron was away at Hull’s Repair Shop and while Angelina was scurrying around town looking for parts or behind her desk fixing flaw’s in her father’s logic, Jimmie would spend hours on end in the workshop. The massive room was located in the mansion Angelina had grown up in - where she and her husband currently chose to live - and as such, Jimmie found that nine out of ten times he was coming here for work, not for a visit. It made even stopping by just for dinner feel tiring.
He sneezed loudly again, snapping him out of his thoughts. This time, as his head came forward, he slammed it hard off of the boiler tank before him. Rubbing his head and cursing softly at the pain, he pulled back with a face twisted in pain and annoyance.
He waited to hear someone bless him, but no one did. Jimmie turned curiously as his green eyes scanned the room. Where had Mareka gone? He looked a few moments longer in confused silence. He hadn’t heard her leave... but then again, his mind had been pretty far away. She had obviously left without telling him. He sniffed. He rubbed at his nose again as he rose from his seat, which was a milk crate placed on the floor (hey, whatever works).
Since she was gone, he supposed he could sneak her handkerchief. He certainly needed it now even more than before, and plus, she wasn’t around so he didn’t run the risk of being pummelled. She never used it, it had been sitting on her desk for months, so it was unlikely she’d even notice its absence. And besides, he’d bring it back after he washed it.
As he walked towards the old desk, a thought flitted across his mind. Why didn’t he just ask her about it? Because she was likely to say no, because she liked to see him suffer, his mind reminded him. Ah, right, that was why he didn’t ask. She’d just glare at him while grinning wickedly and tease "the liddle boy Jeremiah" for having a runny nose, and then he’d have no handkerchief at all, all day, and that would be much too troublesome. Especially since, if he did ask, she was likely to also likely to add injury to insult and hurt him somehow. She was just that crazy.
He arrived at the desk and picked up the handkerchief. Relief was plastered all over his face. He took one last, quick, paranoid look around the workshop - between the machines, along the walls, even out the large windows on the far side. No crazy blonde teenaged nun-in-training could be seen, good.
With a half-hearted sigh, he pulled the rough cloth (he obviously had not been used at all since its date of aquirement) to his nose and proceeded to blow. In honesty, it felt really, really good. Within mere moments his nose was nice and cleared. A smile tugged at his lips. Yes, he felt much, much better now. No annoying sniffing to worry about - he could finally focus on his work and hurry up and finish for the day.
"What are you doing?" Jimmie froze. That was Mareka's voice. She hadn't caught him... had she? His panicked rigidity faded and he fumbled to shove the offensive object in his hand away into his pocket, hoping that perhaps she didn't see it. He turned to face her with as much of a casual expression he could muster.
"Oh, uh... hey there, Mareka. I was just looking for something. But I just realized I don't need it, sooo... I'm just going to head on back over to work." He shrugged and spun, obviously hoping to make it out of this unscathed. The glare she was giving him was cruel enough, he didn't want to be subjected to anything more. Her eyes were the eyes of a demon, promising torture and pain just for his simple, mere existence.
She didn't respond for a long few moments. He was almost back to the machine he had been sent here to fix, yes, just a meter or two left. He could make it. Unconciously, he sped up. "Jimmie." ...But nothing could save him now. His pace slowed. He half-turned to face her. He tried to look calm and casual, but failed terribly.
"...Yeah? W-what is it?"
She glared and held out her hand. "Give me back whatever you took."
His hand flew up and he rubbed the back of his neck in strained innocence. "What makes you think I took anything?"
"Don't lie to me, Jeremiah. You're much too terrible at it. Whatever you took, give it back." She stook stock-still, her hand still out expectantly, the other hand balled into a fist and placed meaningfully on her hip. Her amber eyes displayed nothing short of seriousness and displeasure.
Well, damn it, he was in trouble now. He could own up to swiping her hankercheif (he was going to clean it and bring it back, honest!), but that would result in his immidiate demise. He could lie some more, but she already knew he was lying, so that would result in a slow, painful demise (unlike the quicker one earlier mentioned). Seeking a third option, he decided to stall until her small lapse of sanity would collapse in on itself and she forgot about what they were discussing. A good way to do this, he figured, would be to gradually shift the conversation over to something not so immidiate, causing her attention of the present to enter a short lapse. When it did so, he would take advantage of the situation and then... oh, who was he kidding, he was terrible at manipulation, especially when it came to Mareka, of all people.
She sighed in resignation and stalked slowly towards her. He decided to lie after all, it would be much more painless if he managed to do it right. He could had to calm himself down and keep a straight face. As he closed the distance between them her hand dropped, accomadating for his now closer proximity. His smile was calm and collected - or so he hoped.
His hands slipped into his pockets as he smiled down at the slightly shorter girl. Up until the last year or two, she had always been taller than him, and she had flaunted that endlessly. Endlessly, of course, until one day she found he was taller than her. Being the much kinder of the two, he never chose to pester her about his sudden height as compaired to hers. But of course, that doesn't mean he never used it to his advantage. His slightly higher vantage point in this particular conversation gave him an extra little added confidence, and made her expression just a little more annoyed.
"Look, Mareka," he said softly while smiling gently again, "I didn't take anything, alright? I'd never take anything that belonged to you without your permission - " it was a lie, he had done so on more than one occassion (but always harmlessly) " - and I certainly wouldn't lie about taking something, if I did." ...that was mostly true; the rare occasions he did so borrow things without permission, he would, at some point in time not too much later, inform her about it. This of course was a different situation, so he had to break from his usual form of conduct.
He smiled again, this time a little more casually than before. Scarily enough, her glare didn't let up. He was starting to get freaked out, almost to the point of breaking his calm composure. He would not falter, he would not! If he did, she would win, and he would... probably die. A slow, terrible, painful death. She would kill him so violently he would skip any afterlife, and just vanish eternally.
"Oh yeah? Then why is my handkerchief in your pocket?"
![[Utmost of the Endmost]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4Nw9Eu5S2Sd-DUtfo-f_EwawMmRnAiSnmHlACsQj5UtJExRJwzV05Ny3l4YKtbSHn9o-xiHJ1r84eOaDSscPieupCV3JKmPXaABYQvKmHhdj3xcEcDbSuZv9rP0kSlSkzC74o9jMxMg/s1600-r/tsuyukusa.png)
